On a lighter note (yes, I think a globe-spanning war is lighter than what I just posted. What does that say about me?) this is a piece of fiction I wrote up for an alternate history board I participate in. Thought I'd post it here as well.
November 5th, 1941, aboard CV Akagi, at sea off Yokosuka, Japan.
Admiral Nagumo cursed as the line connecting his flagship to the tanker parted. The first such mishap had drawn no reaction from him at all – accidents happen at sea, especially when practicing new techniques. Two men injured, one seriously, and a cable lost was a small price to pay for learning the ability to refuel ships at sea.
The second time a cable had parted had drawn a frown, quickly suppressed. The frown had returned briefly when word was brought to him that this time there had been a fatality.
That had been three hours, four broken cables, eighteen injuries, five fatalities, and one near-collision ago.
“Enough!” Nagumo snapped. “Signal ‘discontinue evolution’ and make preparations for returning to Yokosuka.”
“Hai.”
November 10th, 1941, aboard BB Nagato, Iwakuni, Japan.
Admiral Yamamoto managed to restrain his curse. “Two weeks?”
“If we are to count on underway refueling for the upcoming operations, yes,” Nagumo replied calmly. “The additional time would be of great benefit in other ways. Zuikaku has been in commission for less than two months, and Shokaku barely three. Their air groups are inexperienced.”
“It is less than a month to the target date. Your force is to sail in sixteen days, and you want two extra weeks? Impossible.”
“Perhaps, then, the operation should be cancelled,” Nagumo replied, still with his maddening calm.
“The operation is vital. It can not be cancelled.”
“Then in order to have Kido Butai ready, I shall require two additional weeks of training.”
“You were able to transfer fuel from the tanker to Akagi, and to the destroyers, were you not?” Yamamoto countered.
“Barely more than half the time, in moderate seas, with our most experienced tanker crew and one of our best carriers. The destroyers fared even worse.”
This time, Yamamoto only barely managed to restrain his curse. “I shall speak to Nagano. Many operations would have to be delayed. Oil is running short. You are to continue to make all possible preparations to depart on schedule.”
November 12th, 1941, Imperial General HQ, Tokyo, Japan.
“THREE weeks?!”
“If we are not to strike on the 8th, then that would be the ideal time. Task Force 1 is scheduled to sail on the 12th, and then Task Force 2 on the 17th. They will not both be in port again until the 27th. The 28th, Hawaii time, allows time for any delays and is a Sunday, just like the original target date of the 7th, Hawaii time,” the Intelligence officer replied.
“More than just the Oahu raid is involved in this operation! More than just the Navy is involved! Malaya, the Philippines, everything will have to change,” General Sugiyama protested.
“Yamamoto is most insistent…” Shimada began.
“Enough.” Tojo’s single word silenced the room. “Our meetings with The Emperor continue. A decision of this magnitude can not be made without him. Whatever the plans may say, the final date is not set until it is set by him.”
December 19th, 1941, aboard BB Nagato, Hashirajima, Japan.
“So, it is to be war,” Yamamoto said quietly.
“The Emperor has so ordered. War with the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands will begin on December 29th.”
“So be it. Signal to Kido Butai: Climb Mount Niitaka, 1229.”
*
On the morning of December 28th, 1941, over two-thirds of the US Pacific Fleet was in port in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The ships present included two aircraft carriers, eight battleships, four heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, and over thirty destroyers.
Cryptanalysts in Washington D.C. had decoded a message to the Japanese embassy, and a war warning was sent to all commands. Due to poor radio conditions, the message did not reach Pearl Harbor until ten minutes after the attack began.
Pearl Harbor’s only warning was from the Army radar teams, which picked up the 1st attack wave as it approached the island almost an hour before the attack. However the operators initially believed the blip, the largest any of them had ever seen, to be a malfunction, and failed to pass word to the brand-new fighter direction center for 6 vital minutes. The senior officer there, apparently also believing this must be a mistake of some sort, ordered a single flight of fighters to be sent up to check out the blip, and did not send out a general alert. He was later court-martialed and discharged. A quartet of P-40B’s from the 73rd Interceptor Squadron were the first to make contact with the enemy just minutes before the 1st wave arrived over their targets.
Fuchida, who had prepared for the possibility that complete surprise would not be achieved, fired two smoke signals to order his dive-bombers and fighters to attack first in order to draw fire from the torpedo bombers. The torpedo bombers failed to see one of the signals, and thus believed surprise had been achieved. All of the 1st wave aircraft thus attacked at once. The torpedo bombers did the most damage, hitting both carriers, four battleships, a heavy cruiser, and the target ship USS Utah with a total of 20 torpedoes from 40 aircraft. USS Saratoga, USS Enterprise, USS Oklahoma, and USS Utah were capsized, and USS Nevada was sunk, though heroic damage control efforts allowed her to settle on an even keel.
The most spectacular damage was later determined to have been caused by a single bomb, actually a modified 16” shell, which penetrated the deck armor of USS California and caused an explosion in her forward magazine. Over 1,000 men were killed and the ship began to sink rapidly.
The second wave of IJN aircraft encountered much increased resistance from anti-aircraft fire and the few aircraft which managed to get off the ground, but were able to bomb the capsized hulls of USS Saratoga, USS Enterprise, and USS Utah, ensuring that these ships could not be salvaged later. Two bombs from the second wave struck USS Craven (DD382), which exploded and sank in less than 5 minutes with the loss of 170 of her crew.
Of nearly 600 aircraft present, 135 were destroyed and 144 were damaged. Particularly high losses were taken by the Navy Patrol Wings; every single aircraft on the ground at the start of the attack was destroyed or damaged.
Japanese losses were 37 aircraft destroyed, with 61 aircrew killed.
Capital ships & cruisers present:
USS Saratoga CV3 – sunk by 4 torpedoes, unsalvageable
USS Enterprise CV6 – sunk by 3 torpedoes, unsalvageable
USS Nevada BB36 – sunk by 3 torpedoes
USS Oklahoma BB37 – sunk by 4 torpedoes, unsalvageable
USS Pennsylvania BB38 – lightly damaged
USS Arizona BB39 – damaged by torpedo and bombs
USS Tennessee BB43 – damaged by 2 torpedoes and bombs
USS California BB44 – sunk by bomb, unsalvageable
USS Maryland BB46 – damaged by bombs
USS West Virginia BB48 – lightly damaged
USS Northampton CA26
USS Chester CA27 – damaged by torpedo
USS Louisville CA28 – lightly damaged
USS Portland CA33
USS Raleigh CL7
USS Detroit CL8
USS Phoenix CL46
USS Boise CL47 – lightly damaged
USS Honolulu CL48
USS St. Louis CL49
USS Helena CL50
Other ships damaged or destroyed:
USS Tucker DD374 – damaged by bombs
USS Craven DD382 – sunk by bombs, unsalvageable
USS Blue DD387 – damaged by bombs
USS Whitney AD4 – lightly damaged
USS Utah AG16 – sunk by 2 torpedoes, unsalvageable
A few notes are in order. First, the international date line makes dates somewhat complicated. For TTL, the Japanese will, as they historically did, refer to Tokyo time unless explicitly stated otherwise. The US will generally refer to local time.
The PoD is the IJN deciding to conduct underway replenishment exercises prior to the fleet sailing for the Pearl Harbor operation. These do not go well (casualties occurred during the OTL raid), and as shown above the end result is that the raid will take place on 12/28, not 12/7. According to CINCPAC File No. A4-3/FF12/(13), Serial 01254, US Pacific Fleet, August 13th, 1941, Task Forces 1 and 2 (with all the battleships plus USS Saratoga CV3 and USS Enterprise CV6) were scheduled to be in port that day. USS Saratoga would have returned from the refit on the Pacific Coast that kept her out of Pearl IOTL, and USS Enterprise will be back from her delivery run. As far as I can tell, the quarterly employment schedule’s contents were known to the Japanese, though further details (like USS Saratoga’s refit) were not. IOTL USS Enterprise’s ferry mission departed on November 28th, per the schedule, partly in order not to arouse suspicion.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/timeline/410813apac.html
This timeline will mostly be in “textbook” form; but I felt the introduction should be a little more personal.
Questions, comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism are welcome.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Terrorists: 5, USA: 1
Just days after 9/11/01 I posted on a BBoard at Carnegie Mellon noting that the terrorists had not yet won. Today some people are celebrating because Osama Bin Laden is dead. I'm not, because even with his death the terrorists are still winning.
On 9/11 I was an undergraduate at C-MU; I saw a note that the first tower had been hit by a plane on the AP news wire and forwarded it to several bboards; several people told me later that my post was the first word they had of the attacks. I remember watching the towers fall, over and over again. I remember hearing an airplane and being one of scores of people who went outside to look up at the sky, and look for reassurance in each other. I remember great relief identifying the plane as a fighter, not an airliner. I was scared on 9/11.
But not as scared as I was when I heard President Bush tell the world 'you are either with us or against us.' That was a victory for the terrorists: they had just been recognized as a global power by the most powerful nation on earth. Not even in WWII, fighting some of the most evil monsters ever to wear human skin, did the allies lay such a declaration before the world.
The disgustingly named Patriot Act and the formation of the TSA were another pair of victories: the terrorists had made us sacrifice our essential liberties for an illusion of security.
Then the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Why those countries? Why not pick the nation in the Mid East that had done more than any other to aid in the 9/11 attacks? Why Saudi Arabia's immunity? Or why not the nation(s) Osama was believed to be hiding in? Even in October of 2001 it was an open secret that Pakistan was a possible location - perhaps he was not there then, of course, but with what we know now it is hard to believe that officials, many of them quite senior, in Pakistan were not aware of his general location.
But now, almost ten full years after the 9/11 attacks, we have finally killed the ring leader. Rejoice! So will the TSA be stood down? No, our current administration is already warning us that this may lead to retaliatory attacks. So those 'temporary' 'emergency' measures turn out to have been neither temporary nor effective, and the 'emergency' appears to be permanent.
Don't get me wrong, some things have improved since 9/11: the armored cockpit doors on commercial aircraft and the measures to prevent people from rushing the cockpit are good, effective steps that have the added bonus of in no way compromising our rights. But groping by the TSA in no way adds to our security and is yet another erosion of our liberty.
It is a sign of the times that when I was thinking of the scorecard for the title I considered assigning three points for the TSA and their escalating steps along the road to bureaucratic waste and ineffectiveness. Then I couldn't decide if it should actually be four, or five, and finally decided to simply award them one for simplicity's sake.
So we've won a single battle, but we are still loosing the war.
On the bright side, we haven't lost yet. In commemoration both of the 100th anniversary of its adoption as the US Army's principle sidearm and the 10th anniversary of 9/11, this summer I am going to purchase a Colt 1911. Because while the right to keep and bear arms has been eroded, it still remains. Because while we are loosing, we have not yet lost. We can still win.
We can repeal the ill-named Patriot Act's provisions, and all other legislation contrary to the US Constitution. We can disband the TSA entirely, and let the airlines, individually, decide what they will allow on their planes and bear any expenses they choose to spend searching. We can punish the nations that actually bore responsibility for 9/11.
On 9/11 I was an undergraduate at C-MU; I saw a note that the first tower had been hit by a plane on the AP news wire and forwarded it to several bboards; several people told me later that my post was the first word they had of the attacks. I remember watching the towers fall, over and over again. I remember hearing an airplane and being one of scores of people who went outside to look up at the sky, and look for reassurance in each other. I remember great relief identifying the plane as a fighter, not an airliner. I was scared on 9/11.
But not as scared as I was when I heard President Bush tell the world 'you are either with us or against us.' That was a victory for the terrorists: they had just been recognized as a global power by the most powerful nation on earth. Not even in WWII, fighting some of the most evil monsters ever to wear human skin, did the allies lay such a declaration before the world.
The disgustingly named Patriot Act and the formation of the TSA were another pair of victories: the terrorists had made us sacrifice our essential liberties for an illusion of security.
Then the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Why those countries? Why not pick the nation in the Mid East that had done more than any other to aid in the 9/11 attacks? Why Saudi Arabia's immunity? Or why not the nation(s) Osama was believed to be hiding in? Even in October of 2001 it was an open secret that Pakistan was a possible location - perhaps he was not there then, of course, but with what we know now it is hard to believe that officials, many of them quite senior, in Pakistan were not aware of his general location.
But now, almost ten full years after the 9/11 attacks, we have finally killed the ring leader. Rejoice! So will the TSA be stood down? No, our current administration is already warning us that this may lead to retaliatory attacks. So those 'temporary' 'emergency' measures turn out to have been neither temporary nor effective, and the 'emergency' appears to be permanent.
Don't get me wrong, some things have improved since 9/11: the armored cockpit doors on commercial aircraft and the measures to prevent people from rushing the cockpit are good, effective steps that have the added bonus of in no way compromising our rights. But groping by the TSA in no way adds to our security and is yet another erosion of our liberty.
It is a sign of the times that when I was thinking of the scorecard for the title I considered assigning three points for the TSA and their escalating steps along the road to bureaucratic waste and ineffectiveness. Then I couldn't decide if it should actually be four, or five, and finally decided to simply award them one for simplicity's sake.
So we've won a single battle, but we are still loosing the war.
On the bright side, we haven't lost yet. In commemoration both of the 100th anniversary of its adoption as the US Army's principle sidearm and the 10th anniversary of 9/11, this summer I am going to purchase a Colt 1911. Because while the right to keep and bear arms has been eroded, it still remains. Because while we are loosing, we have not yet lost. We can still win.
We can repeal the ill-named Patriot Act's provisions, and all other legislation contrary to the US Constitution. We can disband the TSA entirely, and let the airlines, individually, decide what they will allow on their planes and bear any expenses they choose to spend searching. We can punish the nations that actually bore responsibility for 9/11.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Two things are certain in life...
Here's a very interesting post:
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/happy-tax-day/
An accountant (who is also a self-confessed gun nut and a successful sci-fi author, which is how I know him) talks about the current budget situation.
My own take: we need to amputate federal spending.
Amputate?
Well, 'cuts' are small, right? Amputations have a tendency to be larger.
Amputation is usually rather drastic, isn't it?
Yeah, only done in life-or-death situations. I still say: amputate.
Cutting thirty-odd billion is a drop in the bucket. That's less than 1% of our budget. We're spending over 150% of what we earned in FY2010. We need to amputate ONE THIRD of Federal spending. ONE THIRD. If Federal spending were a person, that'd be both its legs. Amputate.
Oh, and cutting a third of the budget? That'd just mean things aren't getting any worse. To actually pay off the debt would mean cutting even more.
My proposal? Cut half, across the board. Every federal agency, without exception, will have its budget halved and must lay off half its work force. Yes, that includes the military. Half of our serving personnel are going to be discharged. Every subsidy, every program, every grant, halved.
I'd love to be more selective, but we don't have time. We're on a train heading at full speed for a cliff edge. We need to put the breaks on now, hard, and pray we don't jackknife. The fall WILL kill us. Putting on the breaks WILL hurt... but we MAY survive.
An across-the-board cut is also the only way I see to get past the debate. I'd like to eliminate the entire TSA - lock, stock, and groping. But I'd never get half of Congress to agree to that. Meanwhile, they'd like to cut federal rail subsidies I'd like to see raised. The only way to make the cuts 'fair' is to make it clear we're cutting EVERYTHING.
Yeah. We're cutting the legs off the federal government. The patient might not survive the surgery. However we can be absolutely sure they'll bleed to death if we DON'T amputate. Any decent doctor would know what to do. Cut... and pray.
http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/happy-tax-day/
An accountant (who is also a self-confessed gun nut and a successful sci-fi author, which is how I know him) talks about the current budget situation.
My own take: we need to amputate federal spending.
Amputate?
Well, 'cuts' are small, right? Amputations have a tendency to be larger.
Amputation is usually rather drastic, isn't it?
Yeah, only done in life-or-death situations. I still say: amputate.
Cutting thirty-odd billion is a drop in the bucket. That's less than 1% of our budget. We're spending over 150% of what we earned in FY2010. We need to amputate ONE THIRD of Federal spending. ONE THIRD. If Federal spending were a person, that'd be both its legs. Amputate.
Oh, and cutting a third of the budget? That'd just mean things aren't getting any worse. To actually pay off the debt would mean cutting even more.
My proposal? Cut half, across the board. Every federal agency, without exception, will have its budget halved and must lay off half its work force. Yes, that includes the military. Half of our serving personnel are going to be discharged. Every subsidy, every program, every grant, halved.
I'd love to be more selective, but we don't have time. We're on a train heading at full speed for a cliff edge. We need to put the breaks on now, hard, and pray we don't jackknife. The fall WILL kill us. Putting on the breaks WILL hurt... but we MAY survive.
An across-the-board cut is also the only way I see to get past the debate. I'd like to eliminate the entire TSA - lock, stock, and groping. But I'd never get half of Congress to agree to that. Meanwhile, they'd like to cut federal rail subsidies I'd like to see raised. The only way to make the cuts 'fair' is to make it clear we're cutting EVERYTHING.
Yeah. We're cutting the legs off the federal government. The patient might not survive the surgery. However we can be absolutely sure they'll bleed to death if we DON'T amputate. Any decent doctor would know what to do. Cut... and pray.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Nuclear power emergencies
OK, I've had to endure hearing the Japanese nuke situation be compared to both Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. No. Just no.
The situation at Fukushima is already an order of magnitude worse than TMI was. It has yet to come within an order of magnitude of being as bad as Chernobyl was.
I've also heard people casually throwing around the term 'disaster' for all three. Chernobyl was certainly a disaster. TMI and (so far) Fukushima? Not so much. Perhaps it is just the paramedic in me, but I have a hard time labeling something as a disaster when no one dies.
Now, I'll grant Fukushima has the potential to become a disaster, but it hasn't yet. Radiation levels outside the plant have yet to reach dangerous levels. You really need to take a dose of about one (1) Sievert over the course of a day or less to have noticeable medical effects. While the rate has peaked above that level outside the plant, it has always (again, so far) been in brief spikes and has dropped back to low levels.
I've also heard people say lots of plants in the US are just like those at Fukushima. Well... yes and no. There are a few that are very similar and some that are somewhat similar. Of course, at this level of similarity ALL motor vehicles (including SUVs, minivans, sedans, compacts, etc.) are identical. Do you feel just as safe driving a 30 year old compact as a brand-new sedan? You probably shouldn't. You'd probably think comparing them didn't make much sense. Here's something you won't here in the news much: Fukushima? Built in the 1970's. That's right, the plant is 30-40 years old and the design is nearly 50 years old. Yes, they've upgraded over the years. So has every single US plant - I know, I've helped upgrade one of them.
Fukushima is an early-generation boiling water reactor. Most US powerplants are pressurized water reactors. Hey, those sound different! Because they are. PWRs are safer on the whole than BWRs. They're also more complex, which is why a lot of early reactors were BWRs.
What also isn't getting talked about much is that Fukushima is only having problems because their primary AND secondary backup systems were destroyed by the tsunami - and they'd actually forseen the possibility of a tsunami and built a barrier to withstand a small to medium one. If the plant had been further down the coast, it would have been enough. They, however, were almost right on top of one of the worst quakes in recorded history and THE worst in recorded Japanese history.
Thousands of people have died as a direct result of this quake and tsunami, but while the workers in the plant are certainly in jeopardy no one has died, yet, as a direct result of the situation at Fukushima. Note I said directly: these plants provided a lot of electrical power, and a lot of people are without power in near-freezing temperatures as a result. Of course, a coal plant would also have been damaged and quite likely knocked off line by the quake/tsunami combo, and the loss of the power lines to the plant would have prevented the plant from providing power from the quake until now (and however much longer it takes to restore power to Fukushima) even if it had survived.
The situation at Fukushima is already an order of magnitude worse than TMI was. It has yet to come within an order of magnitude of being as bad as Chernobyl was.
I've also heard people casually throwing around the term 'disaster' for all three. Chernobyl was certainly a disaster. TMI and (so far) Fukushima? Not so much. Perhaps it is just the paramedic in me, but I have a hard time labeling something as a disaster when no one dies.
Now, I'll grant Fukushima has the potential to become a disaster, but it hasn't yet. Radiation levels outside the plant have yet to reach dangerous levels. You really need to take a dose of about one (1) Sievert over the course of a day or less to have noticeable medical effects. While the rate has peaked above that level outside the plant, it has always (again, so far) been in brief spikes and has dropped back to low levels.
I've also heard people say lots of plants in the US are just like those at Fukushima. Well... yes and no. There are a few that are very similar and some that are somewhat similar. Of course, at this level of similarity ALL motor vehicles (including SUVs, minivans, sedans, compacts, etc.) are identical. Do you feel just as safe driving a 30 year old compact as a brand-new sedan? You probably shouldn't. You'd probably think comparing them didn't make much sense. Here's something you won't here in the news much: Fukushima? Built in the 1970's. That's right, the plant is 30-40 years old and the design is nearly 50 years old. Yes, they've upgraded over the years. So has every single US plant - I know, I've helped upgrade one of them.
Fukushima is an early-generation boiling water reactor. Most US powerplants are pressurized water reactors. Hey, those sound different! Because they are. PWRs are safer on the whole than BWRs. They're also more complex, which is why a lot of early reactors were BWRs.
What also isn't getting talked about much is that Fukushima is only having problems because their primary AND secondary backup systems were destroyed by the tsunami - and they'd actually forseen the possibility of a tsunami and built a barrier to withstand a small to medium one. If the plant had been further down the coast, it would have been enough. They, however, were almost right on top of one of the worst quakes in recorded history and THE worst in recorded Japanese history.
Thousands of people have died as a direct result of this quake and tsunami, but while the workers in the plant are certainly in jeopardy no one has died, yet, as a direct result of the situation at Fukushima. Note I said directly: these plants provided a lot of electrical power, and a lot of people are without power in near-freezing temperatures as a result. Of course, a coal plant would also have been damaged and quite likely knocked off line by the quake/tsunami combo, and the loss of the power lines to the plant would have prevented the plant from providing power from the quake until now (and however much longer it takes to restore power to Fukushima) even if it had survived.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
What do you keep in your car?
Bought a used car a week ago today, and spent much of yesterday buying stuff to outfit him (Marius). The objective is to have the following:
Roadside gear: get the car moving again after minor problems and protect the person making said repairs. Includes: jumper cables, flares, ice scraper, quart of oil, duct tape, shovel, bag of salt, fix-a-flat, tire iron, 3 or 4 D-cell Mag Light, work gloves, rain coat.
Emergency gear: deal with larger roadside problems. Includes: seat belt cutter/glass hammer, lifeboat rations, long shelf life water pouches, thermal blankets, candles, matches, first aid kit (trauma bag), fire extinguisher, extra batteries, light sticks, 50' of rope, toilet paper.
Utility gear: maps, tissue, hand wipes, power bars, water bottle.
So what do you keep in your car?
Roadside gear: get the car moving again after minor problems and protect the person making said repairs. Includes: jumper cables, flares, ice scraper, quart of oil, duct tape, shovel, bag of salt, fix-a-flat, tire iron, 3 or 4 D-cell Mag Light, work gloves, rain coat.
Emergency gear: deal with larger roadside problems. Includes: seat belt cutter/glass hammer, lifeboat rations, long shelf life water pouches, thermal blankets, candles, matches, first aid kit (trauma bag), fire extinguisher, extra batteries, light sticks, 50' of rope, toilet paper.
Utility gear: maps, tissue, hand wipes, power bars, water bottle.
So what do you keep in your car?
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